


[HIATUS] — La Douleur Exquise

by crystymre



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Broken Draco Malfoy, Codependency, Cognitive Dissonance, Dark Hermione Granger, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Forced Cohabitation, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter is Dead, Imprisonment, Legilimency (Harry Potter), Manipulative Gellert Grindelwald, Mental Coercion, Mental Instability, Occlumency (Harry Potter), Protective Queenie Goldstein, Time Travel, Time Turner (Harry Potter), Unbreakable Vow (Harry Potter), Unforgivable Curses (Harry Potter), enemy of my enemy, false identities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:08:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25133665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystymre/pseuds/crystymre
Summary: Additional tags to be noted:Past Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley -the canonical kiss.Past Draco Malfoy/Pansy ParkinsonUnhealthy Coping MechanismsUnderage DrinkingEventual RomanceEventual Aged Up SmutDraco Is A SassholeHermione Has A Plan -She ThinksAngst -See Above TagsNo Promise of A Happy Ending✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵Admittedly this fic will be a labor of love, trying to combine separate HP worlds into one time travel un-paradox. I am going to do my absolute best to stick to canonical facts however for the sake of the story some liberties will be taken... like shipping Dramione in 1928 France lolI will try to update this and my other Dramione fic, The Scars We Hide, with a regular frequency. Note, life happens and I am easily distracted. If you feel the need to yell at me, whether good or bad, you can DM me at@crystymreThank you all for reading!Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to either the Harry Potter franchise or the Fantastic Beasts movies. These characters are not my own, simply my playthings in this asinine fictional universe.
Relationships: Credence Barebone/Nagini, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Queenie Goldstein & Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	[HIATUS] — La Douleur Exquise

__

_It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -Albus Dumbledore_

✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵

Time stood frozen, forever stuck in the perpetual loop of Voldemort’s words. 

“Harry Potter is dead.” 

He smiled sickeningly, his followers cheering. 

Ginny screamed, her heart and soul torn from her being upon seeing Hagrid carry Harry’s lifeless corpse. Arthur pulled Ginny back with the understanding his only daughter would get herself killed crossing the gap between the Light and the Dark. The man had already lost one son; he couldn’t bear to lose another child. 

It started all over again. “Harry Potter is dead,” Voldemort’s words echoed, reverberating in Hermione’s ears. Over and over and over again: “Harry Potter is dead.”

The inevitable had come to pass. A prophecy fulfilled.

Hermione’s heart shattered along everyone else’s who had fought that night, the pieces dropping into the pit of her stomach. Nausea consumed her, but she refused the Death Eaters the show. She’d sooner be the one Hagrid was carrying than let them see that weakness in her. She had endured the Snatchers. Survived Bellatrix. She lived through the cruciatus. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. 

“Harry Potter is dead.” 

Hermione had known Harry was going to die. _He_ had known he was going to die, though perhaps later than he should have. For months Hermione searched for a solution, an alternate meaning to the prophecy Sirius had died helping them get. She poured over memories of Albus’ words, things Harry had told her, always coming to the same conclusion: Harry Potter was the Horcrux Voldemort never meant to make.

She had known for months, afraid to tell him, confident she could find an answer. Harry already carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Not telling him was the only peace she could give him. She bought him time. Time to enjoy what he could of life until the end. Time to enjoy friendship, surrounded by all those that would lay down their lives for him. Time to experience love, Ginny being a ray of sunshine in his dark world.

Part of Hermione had hoped that love would save him again, just as it had that night in Godric’s Hollow. That divine intervention would spare him the cruel fate that Voldemort had set upon him that night. 

“Harry Potter is dead.”

The Boy Who Lived had gone to die. Their goodbye had been brief, Ron trying to console her as their best friend walked toward certain death. Harry had accepted his fate. There was no persuading him otherwise. He refused to let another person die on his behalf, not when so many already had. Harry was a true Gryffindor right up to the end.

“Kill the snake,” Harry had said, asking one last favor. “Kill the snake, and Voldemort is vulnerable. Kill the snake, and you can win.” Harry’s words feel like a lifetime ago, a distant nightmare that would haunt her on a restless night. 

“I love you,” she’d said, tears streaming silently down her face. Hermione had tried to be brave for him, her tears meaning nothing in the grand scheme of things. 

“Love you too,” he replied, the last of the spark in his mother’s green eyes. “You two look out for each other.”

“We will mate,” Ron whispered next to her, holding Hermione’s hand tight. “Tell the others… tell Fred...” 

“I will,” Harry flashed them one last smile. “Tell Ginny--”

“We will,” Ron gave him a brave grin, wiping an errant tear with the back of his hand. 

Ginny never had the chance to say goodbye. 

Ron and Hermione had meant to find her after Harry set off for the Dark Forest, but there was too much to do. Too many people to help heal. 

Ginny’s scream cut through the noise, Voldemort declaring his victory once more. The Death Eater’s cheers roared in her ears like the ocean waves beside Shell Cottage, the sound deafening as her blood raged inside. 

“Now is the time to declare yourself. Come forward and join us. Or die.” Despite the silence of the courtyard, her pulse beat in her ears like the drums of war. There would be another fight. Another battle. She could feel it coming.

In the distance, she could hear Narcissa Malfoy call out to her son, Bellatrix watching him intently.

Harry had saved Malfoy. In his last hours on earth, Harry saved the boy he’d regarded as his enemy. Hermione had thought maybe it was repayment for the debt he owed Malfoy, for not identifying him in the Manor. But she knew Harry too well for that. Harry was right through and through. He was everything Voldemort was not.

Behind her, Malfoy moved out of the shadows he’d been hiding in while the dead had been mourned and the injured were treated. Hermione watched as he crossed the courtyard toward his parents, certain that she saw the reluctance in the way he moved. In some regards, she would suppose he was as much a victim of this war as they were, but in the end, _he_ had let his aunt into the school. 

It didn’t matter that Hermione had later found out Malfoy had lowered his wand against Albus. Or that it was Snape, and not Malfoy, who had cast the curse who ended that great man’s life. Malfoy bore the mark of the man who had killed Harry Potter.

Hermione’s fingers tightened around her wand. _Snape_. Her mind flashed back to their goodbye. Harry had given her the vial of Severus’ tears. Another man who bore the same mark. A memory she would have to view later.

The Death Eaters’ laughter pulled her from her thoughts. The pounding in her ears grew louder, faster, her blood pressure rising. 

“I’d like to say something.” Neville. Hermione’s eyes trained on him, limping towards Voldemort, Sorting Hat in hand.

 _What are you doing?_ She wanted to scream. Between them, Bellatrix turned, her dark eyes narrowing on Neville. Hermione’s pulse raced to an incredible speed, the beat in her ears so loud now she can barely hear Voldemort’s words.

“He didn’t die in vain. But you will. Because you’re wrong. Harry’s heart did beat for us. For all of us! It’s not over!” Hermione and the students around her gasped as Neville puled the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat. The very sword they would need to kill the snake. Goblin forged, basilisk venom absorbed into Godric’s heirloom.

_Kill the snake, and you can win._

Harry’s words drown out the thrum of her heart. For a second, she was sure he had spoken them himself. Hermione looked over to Hagrid, a small prayer that her friend would suddenly spring to life and end this war before anyone else died. Instead, Harry’s colorless body lay limp, his unruly hair matted to his dirty face, glasses shattered as they had once been their first time aboard the Hogwarts Express.

“RUN!” Ron’s voice is so very far away. Hermione had been positive she was standing beside him. They hadn’t separated since they arrived in Hogsmeade. Had barely let go of one another since the Chamber of Secrets, since their kiss.

 _Please, Harry._ Hermione prayed to whatever God might be listening. _Please come back. We need you._ I _need you. The prophecy was wrong. If I could just find the answer…_

“RUN!” Ron repeated, his breath hot on her face. He pushed her just hard enough for her to feel the bag on her wrist move. The bag that once held their lives. The bag that currently held Snape’s memories. The bag that held her last resort…

A curse flew past her face.

“RUN HERMIONE!” Ron shouted one last time.

Her body moved before her brain could process, her legs running of their own volition, turning to flee the scenes of the fight. Her hands dug into the bag as she ran, frantically trying to remember where she had stored Minerva’s gift. Hermione ran through the once familiar corridors, memories of her past long forgotten to an age of innocence. 

_Run_

Ron’s words pushed her harder, faster, deeper into the castle as the cracks of curses and hexes ripped through the air behind her. Her fingers grasped what she had been looking for, their last hope in a losing battle. The slinky gold chain wrapped around her neck, it’s excess tangling in her filthy curls. Clutching her hand to her chest, she ran for the Room of Requirement, Minerva McGonagall’s time turner warm in her palm.

* * *

Time was in a freefall, speeding faster and faster to an eventuality that Draco Malfoy feared. “Harry Potter is dead,” Voldemort announced. Behind him, they laughed, all of the witches and wizards who had occupied his home. All of the Death Eaters that would just as soon see him dead as the Chosen One who lay lifeless in the half-giant’s arms. He could hear his aunt’s cackle and knew that if he didn’t show himself soon, she would come to find him. Following the Lovegood girl out into the courtyard, he saw the faces of his parents across the way. They were not laughing.

“Harry Potter is dead,” Voldemort repeated. Maybe it was in his head, the singular moment marking the end of the war. A war that was not his. It had never been his. It was his parents, his fathers. A chance to prove the family name, to be as remarkable as his ancestors before him.

“Harry Potter is dead.”

It had finally happened. The very thing Draco thought he’d once wanted more than anything.

The Boy Who Lived. The Golden Gryffindor. The Chosen One. Favorited by the teachers. Befriended by the student body. A half-blood whose fame preceded his own. The famous child who’d refused Draco’s friendship… was dead.

In another life, they might have been friends had Draco seen the light sooner. He realized all too late that Potter was right in not shaking his hand the day they met. Fortunately for the Wizarding World, Potter had a better sense about him and had managed to survive as long as he did, despite Draco’s and his father’s sinister schemes. Lucius Malfoy, the weakest and most cowardly person Draco had ever known, the same man that he’d spent his youth trying to emulate. A fact that he was ashamed of, and had been, for years now.

Draco’s eyes trained on the boy in the giant arms. While not his favorite person, Potter had been a small beacon of hope. Not just amongst the Light but to those who would rather not see a crazed genocidal maniac lead them to the future they’d all wanted. 

Now his only hope for survival, his mother’s only hope for survival, lay dead.

“Now is the time to declare yourself. Come forward and join us. Or die.” 

He would be called forward. He knew that much. Summoned by his father or mother. Perhaps Bellatrix. Commanded to heel. To fall into line with the ranks of Voldemort’s Army. This was his fate as much as death was Potter’s.

“Draco,” his mother called, her voice managing to grab his attention whereas his father’s desperate pleas did not. “Come,” she said with finality. He couldn’t leave her. She was all he had. He would just as soon die alongside Harry than leave his mother alone with a coward and a maniac. Bellatrix wouldn’t protect her. Not after their argument at the Manor so many months ago. His mother had drawn a line in the sand, trying to save him, shattering any trust her sister had in her. 

His legs moved against his better sense. He _knew_ what he was walking back toward, but it didn’t matter.

 _You are not your father. You can save your mother._ Draco repeated his mantra in his head as he moved past Voldemort. 

Welcomed with a warm hug from his mother and a pat on the shoulder from his father, he turned to face the students he had been betraying for years. 

All eyes were on him. They were judging him. He knew what they thought. He didn’t care. He did what he had to do. It was their lives or his. His life or Dumbledores. In the end, it was Snape who killed him, an unbreakable vow followed through. Draco had heard word that Voldemort killed Snape, his snake Nagini dealing the final blow. It wasn’t the end he would have wanted for his mentor. It wasn’t the end he would have wished for any of them. 

As if on cue, the snake moved between the crowd of Death Eaters, taking its spot next to Voldemort. The crowd erupted with laughter once more as Longbottom approached, stepping forward as was asked of them. _He would never betray them._

“I’d like to say something,” the boy he had once tortured stood with the Sorting Hat in his hand. From the corner of his eye, he watches his aunt, her insane gaze locked onto Longbottom as Voldemort permitted him to speak. 

On his shoulder, his father’s grip tightened, warning him to stay put, not to do anything to jeopardize the family. In his hand, his mother’s fingers caress his own, a love between them he doubted the genocidal man in front of them had ever experienced. 

“He didn’t die in vain,” Longbottom’s voice rises, Draco’s father’s hand tightening further. “But you will. Because you’re wrong. Harry’s heart did beat for us. For all of us! It’s not over!” Around him, the Death Eaters gasped as Longbottom pulled a sword from the hat. The sword of Godric Gryffindor. Draco instantly recognized it from the day it arrived with Potter at the Manor. The day Granger had been tortured on his drawing-room floor, his aunt convinced that they had stolen it from her vault.

Draco’s eyes scanned the crowd, settling on Granger, who’d frozen in place. The weasel was screaming something at her, but he couldn’t hear over the sounds of battle, curses and Unforgivables missiling through the air at students. Suddenly the brunette turned to run, shoving her hand inside a bag of some sort. As quickly as she had pivoted, Bellatrix’s attention turned from Longbottom to Granger, the woman lunging from her spot.

Draco knew what would happen if Bellatrix caught her. The death wouldn’t be instant like so many before her. No, his aunt would take her time. Torture her slowly, publically, for having escaped the Manor. Chances were she’d let Greyback have whatever was left of Granger when she’d broken her.

Before he could think, before he could rationalize his decision, he broke free of his parent’s grasp and chased after his aunt. He chased after Granger.

Draco had never remembered her being particularly athletic, but the ease with which she ran avoiding the curses his aunt hurled at her impressed him to some degree. He caught up with his aunt, who hadn’t questioned his presence, racing to be the first to reach Granger. He couldn’t save her from death, but he could save her from Bellatrix.

_Make it quick. Make it clean. Don’t let her suffer…_

Draco held his wand tightly, mustering the courage to say those two words he couldn’t that day in the Astronomy Tower. 

“Avad--” the words hung up in his throat the minute he saw the glint of gold tangle itself into Grangers rats-nest she called hair. It had been a flash, a moment likely unnoticed by his aunt, who was screaming like a banshee beside him. Hermione Granger, the insufferable know-it-all swot, had a time turner.

* * *

“Draco!” Bellatrix screamed, falling behind. “Get her!”

Hermione’s hands twisted the turner, once... twice... too many times to count. It should have stopped at three, maybe even four, but the turner kept going. Magic thrummed through it as she ran ragged, attempting to escape her pursuers. “Avada--!” the curses incantation came from behind her. Turning sharp, she twisted her ankle, nearly falling down a flight of stairs. _This was it. This was her end,_ she thought. Slaughtered by the woman who tortured her.

Just as the turner began to spin back, a wall crashed into her, knocking her down the twisted corridor toward the dungeons.

Falling and spinning, the light around her shifted: night, day, night, day, night again until it was all a blur. Her body crashed step after step, her head smacking off the walls as the time turner pulled her backward through time. 

With a smack, she hit the cobblestone floor, her face hot from where she landed. A fraction of a second later, the weight that had knocked her down the stairs landed, knocking the air out of her. A groan came from above, a person pinning her to the cold floor. The weight was suffocating, pulling Hermione to a single conclusion: Malfoy.

Finally able to grab her wand, she flicked it up as best she could, sending Draco Malfoy’s body careening into the stone wall beside them. Another low groan came from him as he hit, Hermione struggling to pull herself to her knees. She attempted to raise her wand but Draco was faster, reaching for his as it scattered across the floor.

“Granger!” he exhaled, a rib possibly cracked.

_She had to get out. She couldn’t match him in a duel. Not in this condition._

Hermione knew she needed to get somewhere safe. Somewhere far, far away from the castle. Gripping her wand in one hand, she went to reach for her bag that had fallen by the wayside.

“Granger!” Malfoy shouted again, his lung punctured. She looked up to meet his silver eyes, unintentionally giving her plan away. Both lunged for her bag as she disapparated. 

The two reappeared, falling from the air onto the wet forest floor.

The Forest of Dean. _Why had she come here?_

Hermione gasped for breath; the air knocked out of her twice in less than a minute. She yanked at the bag in her fingers, realizing Malfoy was still attached to the other side. “Let go!” she screamed, pulling one last time. 

_Run_

Hermione scrambled to her feet, her ankle on fire from where she had twisted it. Careful to not put any unnecessary weight on it, she tore off through the woods, memories of the snatchers scratching at the back of her mind.

“Granger!” Malfoy’s voice echoed through the trees as she limped her way towards freedom. Over the roots, under the limbs, bobbing and weaving as she went. If he was casting against her, she didn’t hear it, the pulse in her ears deafening the world around her. The roar. The rush. The river…

Once again, Hermione found herself stopping short, her ankle snapping beneath the pressure. She screamed as fingers raked into her hair, the terror of having been caught distracting her from her broken ankle. Hermione spun, elbowing Malfoy in the gut. The force knocked him to the side, hand still in her hair, as he pulled her down into the raging rapids below. Together they fell, yet again, Hermione inhaling a last gasp as she hit the icy waters. The time turner choked around her neck, the delicate chain acting as a garrote. Thrashing against the current and the force choking her, she dropped her wand into the watery abyss.

Just as the corners of her vision grew dark air forced itself into her lungs. Smacking against the pavement she screamed, her body refusing to let her die. Raising her head to look through her soaked mop of hair, she discovered that they had disapparated elsewhere. That _Malfoy_ had taken her somewhere. Compared to the icy rivers that wound through the Forest of Dean, the pavement below her seemed hot. Coughing up water, gasping for air, Hermione pulled her bag into her chest. 

_Run_

Ron’s voice that seemed so many years away pushed her to her feet. Wandless, she had no choice but to hide. 

Malfoy lay on the ground beside her, knocked out from the impact of his apparition. Using her opportunity, she ran, trying not to scream each time she put weight on her broken ankle.

The streets were unfamiliar to her. It was somewhere she had never been. Decidedly European by the architecture, she paid little attention to the out of date cars that zipped by her in the midday sun. Eastern Europe, perhaps? A movie set of some sort? 

_Run_

Hermione pushed herself harder, her lungs on fire as she struggled to keep her breath.

She ran until she could no longer feel her legs, finding a dark alleyway to catch her breath. A police siren passed two streets by causing her to jump, clasping her hand to her mouth. The last thing she needed was unwanted attention. She had to figure out where she was. _When_ she was, nagging suspicion telling her that she’d gone further than she’d wanted. She had to get back to Ron and Neville. She had to hope that her time turner did its job and took her back far enough to let her save Harry…

Hermione did a quick inventory of herself. Broken ankle. Bruised face. Soaked through. No wand. Bag still firm in her hands. Time turner…

_Where was her time turner?!_

Running her fingers through her hair, praying that it got tangled in the rat’s nest that it was, she came up empty.

_Don’t cry. You don’t get to cry. Not yet._

Time. Date. Hermione needed a point of reference. She had enough in her bag to see her through a war. Surely she had enough to get her back to Hogwarts.

Pushing herself off of the wall, she looked down to find that she had been standing on top of a newspaper. A _French_ newspaper. Dated 2 May 1928.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional tags to be noted:
>
>> Past Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley -the canonical kiss.  
>  Past Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson  
>  Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms  
>  Underage Drinking  
>  Eventual Romance  
>  Eventual Aged Up Smut  
>  Draco Is A Sasshole  
>  Hermione Has A Plan -She Thinks  
>  Angst -See Above Tags  
>  No Promise of A Happy Ending
> 
> ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵
> 
> Admittedly this fic will be a labor of love, trying to combine separate HP worlds into one time travel un-paradox. I am going to do my absolute best to stick to canonical facts however for the sake of the story some liberties will be taken... like shipping Dramione in 1928 France lol 
> 
> I will try to update this and my other Dramione fic, The Scars We Hide, with a regular frequency. Note, life happens and I am easily distracted. If you feel the need to yell at me, whether good or bad, you can DM me at [@crystymre](https://twitter.com/crystymre)
> 
> Thank you all for reading! 
> 
> _Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to either the Harry Potter franchise or the Fantastic Beasts movies. These characters are not my own, simply my playthings in this asinine fictional universe._


End file.
